Social Media

iPhone App Finds Fun Things to Do Near You

A Day's Outing, a website dedicated to helping users find nearby day trips, weekend get-aways or quick excursions across the U.S., has just launched its new iPhone app [iTunes link], making it easy to find ways to spend these dog days of summer, whether you're traveling with family, in small groups or on your own.

We got a chance to play with the app to see what it offers and how it compares to other location destination apps, like Goby. We've also got 100 copies of the app to give away to our readers (it normally retails for $2.99).

Many mobile applications utilize location, but most of them utilize it for finding a specific place, checking in as part of a game, or reading and leaving reviews.

While there is a nice niche of mobile travel guides, what's less common are applications that are designed to help you find destinations or activities nearby. The immediate use-case for this sort of application is when you are visiting a new city or on a vacation. Say you decide to go the beach for a few days, and then it starts to rain (or I don't know, some catastrophically awful oil leak gunks up the beaches) — if you're not in a big city or a place that is a known tourist destination, figuring out how to spend your time, especially while on the go, can be difficult.

A Better Family Vacation Tool

The website, which is free to use and access, is a great way to find different parks, museums, theaters, special events, historical landmarks, zoos and more. What we really like about the app is that it isn't just made for big cities, it's for smaller cities too.

The app is pretty easy to use; it can select your location automatically, or you can enter in your location by city, zip code or street address. Then you select how many days you want the search to cover and how many miles you want your search to encompass.

You can also just search for a specific event if you have an idea of what you are looking for.

The results are brought back in a list by category, and you can also view the results on a map to see where things are in relation to your starting point.

Once you find a place or outing that looks interesting, you can access more information, including the phone number and address, and visit the website for the destination all in the app. You can also see how much admission and parking is.

We do wish that there was a way for users to leave reviews of different destinations, because that would be helpful, especially for people new to a specific area.

Although A Day's Outing is similar in many respects to Goby, it's focus on more family-oriented activities and historical landmarks sets it apart. We really think that families are the types of users that would most benefit from the application.

100 Mashable Readers Get the App Free

If you want to try the app out but don't want to pay $2.99, go to this page and enter in your e-mail address. The first 100 readers will get a code to get the app for free. You can then redeem that code in the App Store.

What do you think of location-based applications that help you find local destinations rather than just restaurants or places of business? How do you find things to do when visiting from out of town?

Mashable
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